Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The term is today generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae (Latin for “green plants”). This includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae, and excludes the red and brown algae. Historically, plants formed one of two kingdoms covering all living things that were not animals, and both algae and fungi were treated as plants; however all current definitions of “plant” exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria).

Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts, derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce normal amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although asexual reproduction is also common. — Wikipedia

Botany, also called plant science(s), plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. Traditionally, botany has also included the study of fungi and algae by mycologists and phycologists respectively, with the study of these three groups of organisms remaining within the sphere of interest of the International Botanical Congress. Nowadays, botanists (in the strict sense) study approximately 410,000 species of land plants of which some 391,000 species are vascular plants (including ca 369,000 species of flowering plants), and ca 20,000 are bryophytes. — Wikipedia

Botanical garden is a garden dedicated to the collection, cultivation and display of a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names. It may contain specialist plant collections such as cacti and other succulent plants, herb gardens, plants from particular parts of the world, and so on; there may be greenhouses, shadehouses, again with special collections such as tropical plants, alpine plants, or other exotic plants. Visitor services at a botanical garden might include tours, educational displays, art exhibitions, book rooms, open-air theatrical and musical performances, and other entertainment.

Botanical gardens are often run by universities or other scientific research organizations, and often have associated herbaria and research programmes in plant taxonomy or some other aspect of botanical science. In principle, their role is to maintain documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation, display, and education, although this will depend on the resources available and the special interests pursued at each particular garden. — Wikipedia

Organelle DNA degradation contributes to the efficient use of phosphate in seed plantsOrganelle DNA degradation contributes to the efficient use of phosphate in seed plants, Published online: 12 November 2018; doi:10.1038/s41477-018-0291-xIn certain types of plant cells, organelle DNA accounts for a substantial proportion of cellular total DNA. Thus, it is hypothesized that organelle DNA could not only serve as the genetic material but also function as a ‘nutrient reservoir’. Now, […]

Truffles are the fruiting bodies of the ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungal symbionts residing on host plant roots. In many Ascomycota and Basidiomycota lineages, truffle-forming species have evolved independently in nearly every major group. This suggests that symbiosis drives evolution of truffle diversity and selects for specific traits. […]

Researchers have discovered the molecular basis for therapeutic actions of an African folk medicine used to treat a variety of illnesses and disorders including diabetes, pain, headaches, paralysis and epilepsy. […]

Scientists have uncovered a novel mechanism in plants that controls an important decision step in stomatal lineage to divide asymmetrically or to differentiate. This is a decisive step for the formation of stomata, tiny pores on the plant surface, produced by asymmetric cell division. […]

In the most comprehensive study of its kind, biologists have found that tropical and subtropical forests across South America's Andes Mountains are responding to warming temperatures by migrating to higher, cooler elevations, but probably not quickly enough to avoid the loss of their biodiversity, functional collapse, or even extinction. […]

Pollinating insects are integral to the health of all terrestrial ecosystems and agriculture worldwide. As homeowners attempt to conserve pollinators through horticulture practices, they often seek the advice and guidance of horticulture retail employees regarding what plants they can successfully include on their properties to maximize their intended benefit to pollinators as well as to their home ecosystems. […]

When temperatures drop, the enzyme Rubisco that fuels plant growth and yield gets sluggish. Many crops compensate by producing more Rubisco; however, scientists speculated that some crops may lack space in their leaves to boost the production of this enzyme, making them more susceptible to cold. A new study from the University of Illinois and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology refutes this theory but found these crops are far from reaching their photosynthetic potential. […]

Metabarcoding, a technique of mass DNA sequencing, allows for tracing migratory routes of insects, an understudied subject due to technical limitations. A small DNA fragment of the pollen that insects transport is used as a barcode to identify the plant species they visited previously. A new study shows that transcontinental pollination mediated by migrating insects is possible and, therefore, various plants located very far apart can mix. […]

Gardeners might end up never planting the wrong bulb again after the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and Reading University successfully mapped a daffodil's chloroplast genome for the first time. […]

In paper published today in Nature Plants, researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, detail for the first time the scale of threatened species that are unable to be conserved in seed banks. The paper reveals that when looking at threatened species, 36 per cent of 'critically endangered' species produce recalcitrant seeds . This means they can't tolerate the drying process and therefore cannot be frozen, the key process they need to go through to be safely 'banked'. […]

Some discoveries happen by accident. Consider how Sept. 28, 1928, unfolded: Alexander Fleming, back in the lab after a vacation with the family, was sorting through dirty Petri dishes that hadn't been cleaned before he went away. A mold growing on one of the dishes caught his attention—and so began the story of the world's first antibiotic: penicillin. […]